Christmas Stories
by Christmasangel2197
Summary: this is a document full of my favorite Christmas stories
1. Chapter 1

"I do not own any of the christmas stories used in this thing I just wanted to spred a little christmas joy so without further ado please enjoy meryy christmas, happy holidays."


	2. The 12 days of christmas

On the first day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
A Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the second day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the third day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the fourth day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the fifth day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the sixth day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
6 Geese a Laying  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the seventh day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
7 Swans a Swimming  
6 Geese a Laying  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the eighth day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
8 Maids a Milking  
7 Swans a Swimming  
6 Geese a Laying  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the ninth day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
9 Ladies Dancing  
8 Maids a Milking  
7 Swans a Swimming  
6 Geese a Laying  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the tenth day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
10 Lords a Leaping  
9 Ladies Dancing  
8 Maids a Milking  
7 Swans a Swimming  
6 Geese a Laying  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the eleventh day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
11 Pipers Piping  
10 Lords a Leaping  
9 Ladies Dancing  
8 Maids a Milking  
7 Swans a Swimming  
6 Geese a Laying  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the first day of Christmas  
my true love sent to me:  
12 Drummers Drumming  
11 Pipers Piping  
10 Lords a Leaping  
9 Ladies Dancing  
8 Maids a Milking  
7 Swans a Swimming  
6 Geese a Laying  
5 Golden Rings  
4 Calling Birds  
3 French Hens  
2 Turtle Doves  
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree


	3. A christmas Carol

MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt  
whatever about that. The register of his burial was  
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,  
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and  
Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he  
chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a  
door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my  
own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about  
a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to  
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery  
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors  
is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands  
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You  
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that  
Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.  
How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were  
partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge  
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole  
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and  
sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully  
cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent  
man of business on the very day of the funeral,  
and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to  
the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley  
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or  
nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going  
to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that  
Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there  
would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a  
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,  
than there would be in any other middle-aged  
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy  
spot–say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance–  
literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.  
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse  
door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as  
Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the  
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,  
but he answered to both names. It was all the  
same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone,  
Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,  
clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,  
from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;  
secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The  
cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed  
nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his  
eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his  
grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his  
eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low  
temperature always about with him; he iced his office in  
the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on  
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather  
chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,  
no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no  
pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't  
know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and  
snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage  
over him in only one respect. They often "came down"  
handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with  
gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?  
When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored  
him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him  
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all  
his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of  
Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to  
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would  
tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and  
then would wag their tails as though they said, "No  
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing  
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths  
of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,  
was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

Once upon a time–of all the good days in the year,  
on Christmas Eve–old Scrooge sat busy in his  
counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy  
withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,  
go wheezing up and down, beating their hands  
upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the  
pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had  
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already–  
it had not been light all day–and candles were flaring  
in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like  
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog  
came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was  
so dense without, that although the court was of the  
narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.  
To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring  
everything, one might have thought that Nature  
lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open  
that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a  
dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying  
letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's  
fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one  
coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept  
the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the  
clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted  
that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore  
the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to  
warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being  
a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried  
a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's  
nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was  
the first intimation he had of his approach.

"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the  
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was  
all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his  
eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's  
nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What  
right have you to be merry? What reason have you  
to be merry? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What  
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you  
to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur  
of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up  
with "Humbug."

"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I  
live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas!  
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas  
time to you but a time for paying bills without  
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but  
not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books  
and having every item in 'em through a round dozen  
of months presented dead against you? If I could  
work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot  
who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips,  
should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried  
with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas  
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you  
don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much  
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done  
you!"

"There are many things from which I might have  
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare  
say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the  
rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas  
time, when it has come round–apart from the  
veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything  
belonging to it can be apart from that–as a  
good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant  
time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar  
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent  
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think  
of people below them as if they really were  
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race  
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,  
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or  
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me  
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.  
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,  
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark  
for ever.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said  
Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing  
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,  
sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you  
don't go into Parliament."

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."

Scrooge said that he would see him–yes, indeed he  
did. He went the whole length of the expression,  
and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if  
that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous  
than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before  
that happened. Why give it as a reason for not  
coming now?"

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;  
why cannot we be friends?"

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so  
resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I  
have been a party. But I have made the trial in  
homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas  
humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

"And A Happy New Year!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

His nephew left the room without an angry word,  
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to  
bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,  
cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned  
them cordially.

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who  
overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a  
week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry  
Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam."

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had  
let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,  
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,  
in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in  
their hands, and bowed to him.

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the  
gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure  
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,"  
Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very  
night."

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented  
by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting  
his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred  
spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge  
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials  
back.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,"  
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than  
usually desirable that we should make some slight  
provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer  
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in  
want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands  
are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down  
the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge.  
"Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish  
I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,  
then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,  
that something had occurred to stop them in their  
useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to  
hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish  
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,"  
returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring  
to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,  
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because  
it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,  
and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down  
for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you  
ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.  
I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't  
afford to make idle people merry. I help to support  
the establishments I have mentioned–they cost  
enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had  
better do it, and decrease the surplus population.  
Besides–excuse me–I don't know that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's  
enough for a man to understand his own business, and  
not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies  
me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue  
their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed  
his labours with an improved opinion of himself,  
and in a more facetious temper than was usual  
with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that  
people ran about with flaring links, proffering their  
services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct  
them on their way. The ancient tower of a church,  
whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down  
at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became  
invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the  
clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if  
its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.  
The cold became intense. In the main street, at the  
corner of the court, some labourers were repairing  
the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,  
round which a party of ragged men and boys were  
gathered: warming their hands and winking their  
eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug  
being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed,  
and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness  
of the shops where holly sprigs and berries  
crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale  
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers'  
trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant,  
with which it was next to impossible to believe that  
such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything  
to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the  
mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks  
and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's  
household should; and even the little tailor, whom he  
had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for  
being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up  
to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean  
wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting  
cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped  
the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather  
as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then  
indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The  
owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled  
by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,  
stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with  
a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of

"God bless you, merry gentleman!  
May nothing you dismay!"

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action,  
that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to  
the fog and even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house  
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his  
stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant  
clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out,  
and put on his hat.

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said  
Scrooge.

"If quite convenient, sir."

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not  
fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd  
think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

The clerk smiled faintly.

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used,  
when I pay a day's wages for no work."

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every  
twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning  
his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must  
have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next  
morning."

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge  
walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a  
twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his  
white comforter dangling below his waist (for he  
boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill,  
at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in  
honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home  
to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play  
at blindman's-buff.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual  
melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and  
beguiled the rest of the evening with his  
banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in  
chambers which had once belonged to his deceased  
partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a  
lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so  
little business to be, that one could scarcely help  
fancying it must have run there when it was a young  
house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses,  
and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough  
now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but  
Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.  
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew  
its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.  
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway  
of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of  
the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the  
threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all  
particular about the knocker on the door, except that it  
was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had  
seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence  
in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what  
is called fancy about him as any man in the city of  
London, even including–which is a bold word–the  
corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be  
borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one  
thought on Marley, since his last mention of his  
seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then  
let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened  
that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,  
saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate  
process of change–not a knocker, but Marley's face.

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow  
as the other objects in the yard were, but had a  
dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark  
cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked  
at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly  
spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The  
hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;  
and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly  
motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it  
horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the  
face and beyond its control, rather than a part of  
its own expression.

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it  
was a knocker again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood  
was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it  
had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.  
But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,  
turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before  
he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind  
it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the  
sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.  
But there was nothing on the back of the door, except  
the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he  
said "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder.  
Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's  
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal  
of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to  
be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and  
walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too:  
trimming his candle as he went.

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six  
up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad  
young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you  
might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken  
it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall  
and the door towards the balustrades: and done it  
easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room  
to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge  
thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before  
him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of  
the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,  
so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with  
Scrooge's dip.

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.  
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before  
he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms  
to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection  
of the face to desire to do that.

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they  
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under  
the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin  
ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had  
a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the  
bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,  
which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude  
against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard,  
old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three  
legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked  
himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his  
custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off  
his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and  
his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take  
his gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a  
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and  
brood over it, before he could extract the least  
sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.  
The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch  
merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint  
Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.  
There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters;  
Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending  
through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams,  
Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,  
hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts;  
and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came  
like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the  
whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,  
with power to shape some picture on its surface from  
the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would  
have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the  
room.

After several turns, he sat down again. As he  
threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened  
to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the  
room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten  
with a chamber in the highest story of the  
building. It was with great astonishment, and with  
a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he  
saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in  
the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it  
rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,  
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had  
begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking  
noise, deep down below; as if some person were  
dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the  
wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have  
heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as  
dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,  
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors  
below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight  
towards his door.

"It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it."

His colour changed though, when, without a pause,  
it came on through the heavy door, and passed into  
the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the  
dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know  
him; Marley's Ghost!" and fell again.

The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail,  
usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on  
the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts,  
and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was  
clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound  
about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge  
observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,  
ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.  
His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him,  
and looking through his waistcoat, could see  
the two buttons on his coat behind.

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no  
bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he  
looked the phantom through and through, and saw  
it standing before him; though he felt the chilling  
influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very  
texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head  
and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before;  
he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.  
"What do you want with me?"

"Much!"–Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I was."

"Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his  
voice. "You're particular, for a shade." He was going  
to say "to a shade," but substituted this, as more  
appropriate.

"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."

"Can you–can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking  
doubtfully at him.

"I can."

"Do it, then."

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know  
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in  
a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event  
of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity  
of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat  
down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he  
were quite used to it.

"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.

"I don't," said Scrooge.

"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of  
your senses?"

"I don't know," said Scrooge.

"Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them.  
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may  
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of  
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of  
gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking  
jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means  
waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be  
smart, as a means of distracting his own attention,  
and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice  
disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence  
for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very  
deuce with him. There was something very awful,  
too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal  
atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it  
himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the  
Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,  
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour  
from an oven.

"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning  
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned;  
and wishing, though it were only for a second, to  
divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

"I do," replied the Ghost.

"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.

"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding."

"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow  
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a  
legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,  
I tell you! humbug!"

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook  
its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that  
Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself  
from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was  
his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage  
round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors,  
its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands  
before his face.

"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do  
you trouble me?"

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do  
you believe in me or not?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits  
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned,  
"that the spirit within him should walk abroad among  
his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that  
spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so  
after death. It is doomed to wander through the  
world–oh, woe is me!–and witness what it cannot  
share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to  
happiness!"

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain  
and wrung its shadowy hands.

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell  
me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.  
"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded  
it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I  
wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the  
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven  
Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since.  
It is a ponderous chain!"

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the  
expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty  
or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see  
nothing.

"Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley,  
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes  
from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed  
by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor  
can I tell you what I would. A very little more is  
all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I  
cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked  
beyond our counting-house–mark me!–in life my  
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our  
money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before  
me!"

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became  
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.  
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now,  
but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his  
knees.

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,"  
Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though  
with humility and deference.

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling  
all the time!"

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no  
peace. Incessant torture of remorse."

"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.

"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.

"You might have got over a great quantity of  
ground in seven years," said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and  
clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of  
the night, that the Ward would have been justified in  
indicting it for a nuisance.

"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the  
phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour  
by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into  
eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is  
all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit  
working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may  
be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast  
means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of  
regret can make amends for one life's opportunity  
misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

"But you were always a good man of business,  
Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this  
to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands  
again. "Mankind was my business. The common  
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,  
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings  
of my trade were but a drop of water in the  
comprehensive ocean of my business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were  
the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it  
heavily upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said,  
"I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of  
fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never  
raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise  
Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to  
which its light would have conducted me!"

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the  
spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake  
exceedingly.

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly  
gone."

"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon  
me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that  
you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible  
beside you many and many a day."

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered,  
and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued  
the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you  
have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A  
chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

"You were always a good friend to me," said  
Scrooge. "Thank'ee!"

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by  
Three Spirits."

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the  
Ghost's had done.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,  
Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.

"It is."

"I–I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot  
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow,  
when the bell tolls One."

"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over,  
Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same  
hour. The third upon the next night when the last  
stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see  
me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you  
remember what has passed between us!"

When it had said these words, the spectre took its  
wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head,  
as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its  
teeth made, when the jaws were brought together  
by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again,  
and found his supernatural visitor confronting him  
in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and  
about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at  
every step it took, the window raised itself a little,  
so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.

It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.  
When they were within two paces of each other,  
Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to  
come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear:  
for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible  
of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of  
lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and  
self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment,  
joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the  
bleak, dark night.

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his  
curiosity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither  
and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they  
went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's  
Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments)  
were linked together; none were free. Many had  
been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He  
had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white  
waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to  
its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist  
a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below,  
upon a door-step. The misery with them all was,  
clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in  
human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist  
enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and  
their spirit voices faded together; and the night became  
as it had been when he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door  
by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked,  
as he had locked it with his own hands, and  
the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!"  
but stopped at the first syllable. And being,  
from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues  
of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or  
the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of  
the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to  
bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the  
instant.

STAVE II: THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed,  
he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from  
the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to  
pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a  
neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened  
for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from  
six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to  
twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he  
went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have  
got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most  
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve:  
and stopped.

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have  
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It  
isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and  
this is twelve at noon!"

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed,  
and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub  
the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he  
could see anything; and could see very little then. All he  
could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely  
cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro,  
and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been  
if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the  
world. This was a great relief, because "three days after sight  
of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his  
order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States'  
security if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought  
it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he  
thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured  
not to think, the more he thought.

Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved  
within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his  
mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first  
position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through,  
"Was it a dream or not?"

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters  
more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned  
him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie  
awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could  
no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the  
wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he  
must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock.  
At length it broke upon his listening ear.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.

"Ding, dong!"

"Half-past!" said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and nothing else!"

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a  
deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room  
upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a  
hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his  
back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains  
of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a  
half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the  
unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now  
to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure–like a child: yet not so like a  
child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural  
medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded  
from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.  
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was  
white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in  
it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were  
very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold  
were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately  
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic  
of the purest white; and round its waist was bound  
a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held  
a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular  
contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed  
with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was,  
that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear  
jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was  
doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a  
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing  
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt  
sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,  
and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so  
the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a  
thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs,  
now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a  
body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible  
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the  
very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and  
clear as ever.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to  
me?" asked Scrooge.

"I am!"

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if  
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish  
stature.

"No. Your past."

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if  
anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire  
to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put out,  
with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough  
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and  
force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon  
my brow!"

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend  
or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at  
any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what  
business brought him there.

"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not  
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been  
more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard  
him thinking, for it said immediately:

"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him  
gently by the arm.

"Rise! and walk with me!"

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the  
weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes;  
that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below  
freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,  
dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at  
that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand,  
was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit  
made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall."

"Bear but a touch of my hand there," said the Spirit,  
laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more  
than this!"

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall,  
and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either  
hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it  
was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished  
with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon  
the ground.

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,  
as he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was  
a boy here!"

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,  
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still  
present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious  
of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected  
with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares  
long, long, forgotten!

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is  
that upon your cheek?"

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,  
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him  
where he would.

"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could  
walk it blindfold."

"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed  
the Ghost. "Let us go on."

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every  
gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared  
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.  
Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them  
with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in  
country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys  
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the  
broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air  
laughed to hear it!

"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said  
the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us."

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge  
knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond  
all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and  
his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled  
with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry  
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for  
their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge?  
Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done  
to him?

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A  
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and  
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little  
weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell  
hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken  
fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls  
were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their  
gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;  
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.  
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for  
entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open  
doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished,  
cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a  
chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow  
with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too  
much to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a  
door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and  
disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by  
lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely  
boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down  
upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he  
used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle  
from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the  
half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among  
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle  
swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in  
the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening  
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his  
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in  
foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:  
stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and  
leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's  
dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas  
time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,  
he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And  
Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there  
they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his  
drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him!  
And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii;  
there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I'm glad of it.  
What business had he to be married to the Princess!"

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature  
on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between  
laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited  
face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in  
the city, indeed.

"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and  
yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the  
top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called  
him, when he came home again after sailing round the  
island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin  
Crusoe?' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.  
It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running  
for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his  
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor  
boy!" and cried again.

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his  
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his  
cuff: "but it's too late now."

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy  
singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should  
like to have given him something: that's all."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand:  
saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the  
room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk,  
the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the  
ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how  
all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you  
do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything  
had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all  
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.  
Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of  
his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy,  
came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and  
often kissing him, addressed him as her "Dear, dear  
brother."

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the  
child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh.  
"To bring you home, home, home!"

"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.

"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good  
and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder  
than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so  
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that  
I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come  
home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach  
to bring you. And you're to be a man!" said the child,  
opening her eyes, "and are never to come back here; but  
first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have  
the merriest time in all the world."

"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy.

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his  
head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on  
tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her  
childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to  
go, accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master  
Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster  
himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious  
condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind  
by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his  
sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that  
ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial  
and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.  
Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a  
block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments  
of those dainties to the young people: at the same time,  
sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something"  
to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,  
but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had  
rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied  
on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster  
good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove  
gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the  
hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens  
like spray.

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have  
withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"

"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not  
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"

"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think,  
children."

"One child," Scrooge returned.

"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly,  
"Yes."

Although they had but that moment left the school behind  
them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,  
where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy  
carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and  
tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by  
the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas  
time again; but it was evening, and the streets were  
lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked  
Scrooge if he knew it.

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!"

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh  
wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two  
inches taller he must have knocked his head against the  
ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig  
alive again!"

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the  
clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his  
hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over  
himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and  
called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly  
in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost.  
"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached  
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night.  
Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's  
have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap  
of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!"

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it!  
They charged into the street with the shutters–one, two,  
three–had 'em up in their places–four, five, six–barred  
'em and pinned 'em–seven, eight, nine–and came back  
before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the  
high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads,  
and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,  
Ebenezer!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared  
away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking  
on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if  
it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was  
swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon  
the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and  
bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's  
night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the  
lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty  
stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial  
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and  
lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they  
broke. In came all the young men and women employed in  
the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the  
baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend,  
the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was  
suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying  
to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who  
was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.  
In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,  
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;  
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went,  
twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again  
the other way; down the middle and up again; round  
and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old  
top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top  
couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top  
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When  
this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his  
hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the  
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially  
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his  
reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no  
dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home,  
exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man  
resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more  
dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there  
was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece  
of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.  
But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast  
and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort  
of man who knew his business better than you or I could  
have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then  
old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top  
couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them;  
three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were  
not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no  
notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many–ah, four times–old  
Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would  
Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner  
in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me  
higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue  
from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the  
dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given  
time, what would have become of them next. And when old  
Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;  
advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and  
curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to  
your place; Fezziwig "cut"–cut so deftly, that he appeared  
to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without  
a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.  
Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side  
of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually  
as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas.  
When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did  
the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away,  
and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a  
counter in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a  
man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene,  
and with his former self. He corroborated everything,  
remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent  
the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the  
bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from  
them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious  
that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its  
head burnt very clear.

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly  
folks so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,  
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:  
and when he had done so, said,

"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of  
your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so  
much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and  
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.  
"It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy  
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a  
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and  
looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is  
impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness  
he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.

"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say  
a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance  
to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by  
side in the open air.

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he  
could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again  
Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime  
of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later  
years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.  
There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which  
showed the passion that had taken root, and where the  
shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young  
girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears,  
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of  
Christmas Past.

"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little.  
Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort  
you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have  
no just cause to grieve."

"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

"A golden one."

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said.  
"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and  
there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity  
as the pursuit of wealth!"

"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.  
"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being  
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your  
nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,  
Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so  
much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were  
both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could  
improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You  
are changed. When it was made, you were another man."

"I was a boy," he said impatiently.

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you  
are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness  
when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that  
we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of  
this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,  
and can release you."

"Have I ever sought release?"

"In words. No. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another  
atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In  
everything that made my love of any worth or value in your  
sight. If this had never been between us," said the girl,  
looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me,  
would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in  
spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think  
not."

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered,  
"Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this,  
I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you  
were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe  
that you would choose a dowerless girl–you who, in your  
very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or,  
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your  
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your  
repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I  
release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you  
once were."

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from  
him, she resumed.

"You may–the memory of what is past half makes me  
hope you will–have pain in this. A very, very brief time,  
and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an  
unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you  
awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"

She left him, and they parted.

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct  
me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"

"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to  
see it. Show me no more!"

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,  
and forced him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very  
large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter  
fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge  
believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely  
matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this  
room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children  
there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;  
and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not  
forty children conducting themselves like one, but every  
child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences  
were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;  
on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,  
and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to  
mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands  
most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of  
them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I  
wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that  
braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little  
shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to  
save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they  
did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should  
have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,  
and never come straight again. And yet I should  
have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have  
questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have  
looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never  
raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of  
which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should  
have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence  
of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its  
value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a  
rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and  
plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed  
and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who  
came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys  
and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and  
the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!  
The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his  
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight  
by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,  
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of  
wonder and delight with which the development of every  
package was received! The terrible announcement that the  
baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan  
into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having  
swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!  
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy,  
and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike.  
It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions  
got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the  
top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,  
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning  
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his  
own fireside; and when he thought that such another  
creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might  
have called him father, and been a spring-time in the  
haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a  
smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the  
same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as  
it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could  
scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point  
of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in  
the world, I do believe."

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me  
from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have  
been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do  
not blame me!"

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon  
him with a face, in which in some strange way there were  
fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which  
the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was  
undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed  
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly  
connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the  
extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down  
upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher  
covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down  
with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed  
from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an  
irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own  
bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand  
relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank  
into a heavy sleep.

STAVE III: THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS

AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and  
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had  
no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the  
stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness  
in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding  
a conference with the second messenger despatched to him  
through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he  
turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which  
of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put  
them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down  
again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For  
he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its  
appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and  
made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves  
on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually  
equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their  
capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for  
anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which  
opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and  
comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for  
Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you  
to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of  
strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and  
rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by  
any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the  
Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a  
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter  
of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay  
upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy  
light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the  
hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than  
a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it  
meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive  
that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of  
spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of  
knowing it. At last, however, he began to think–as you or  
I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not  
in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done  
in it, and would unquestionably have done it too–at last, I  
say, he began to think that the source and secret of this  
ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence,  
on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking  
full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in  
his slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange  
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He  
obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.  
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls  
and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a  
perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming  
berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and  
ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had  
been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring  
up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had  
never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and  
many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form  
a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,  
great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,  
mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,  
cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears,  
immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that  
made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy  
state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to  
see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's  
horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,  
as he came peeping round the door.

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know  
me better, man!"

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this  
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and  
though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like  
to meet them.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit.  
"Look upon me!"

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple  
green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment  
hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was  
bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any  
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the  
garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other  
covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining  
icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its  
genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,  
its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded  
round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword  
was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed  
the Spirit.

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.

"Have never walked forth with the younger members of  
my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers  
born in these later years?" pursued the Phantom.

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have  
not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.

"A tremendous family to provide for!" muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where  
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt  
a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught  
to teach me, let me profit by it."

"Touch my robe!"

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,  
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,  
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,  
the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood  
in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the  
weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and  
not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the  
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of  
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see  
it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting  
into artificial little snow-storms.

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows  
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow  
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;  
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by  
the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed  
and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great  
streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace  
in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,  
and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,  
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended  
in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great  
Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away  
to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful  
in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of  
cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest  
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops  
were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another  
from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious  
snowball–better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest–  
laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it  
went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the  
fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round,  
pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats  
of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out  
into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were  
ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in  
the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking  
from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went  
by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were  
pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there  
were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence  
to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might  
water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy  
and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among  
the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered  
leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting  
off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great  
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and  
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after  
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among  
these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and  
stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was  
something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and  
round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps  
two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such  
glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the  
counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller  
parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled  
up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended  
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even  
that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so  
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,  
the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and  
spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on  
feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs  
were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in  
modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that  
everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but  
the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful  
promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other  
at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left  
their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to  
fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in  
the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people  
were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which  
they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,  
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws  
to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and  
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in  
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the  
same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and  
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners  
to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers  
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with  
Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the  
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their  
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind  
of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words  
between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he  
shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good  
humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame  
to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love  
it, so it was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and  
yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners  
and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of  
wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as  
if its stones were cooking too.

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from  
your torch?" asked Scrooge.

"There is. My own."

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"  
asked Scrooge.

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.

"Because it needs it most."

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder  
you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should  
desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent  
enjoyment."

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every  
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said  
to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said  
Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your  
name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit,  
"who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion,  
pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness  
in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and  
kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge  
their doings on themselves, not us."

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on,  
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the  
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which  
Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding  
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place  
with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as  
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible  
he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in  
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,  
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor  
men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he  
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and  
on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped  
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his  
torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a-week  
himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his  
Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present  
blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out  
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,  
which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and  
she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of  
her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter  
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and  
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private  
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the  
day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly  
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.  
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing  
in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the  
goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious  
thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced  
about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the  
skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked  
him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,  
knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and  
peeled.

"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs.  
Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha  
warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?"

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she  
spoke.

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits.  
"Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!"  
said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off  
her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the  
girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"

"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs.  
Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have  
a warm, Lord bless ye!"

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young  
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha,  
hide!"

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,  
with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,  
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned  
up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his  
shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and  
had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking  
round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his  
high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way  
from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming  
upon Christmas Day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only  
in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet  
door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits  
hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,  
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit,  
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had  
hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he  
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the  
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home,  
that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he  
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember  
upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind  
men see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and  
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing  
strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back  
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by  
his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while  
Bob, turning up his cuffs–as if, poor fellow, they were  
capable of being made more shabby–compounded some hot  
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round  
and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,  
and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the  
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose  
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a  
black swan was a matter of course–and in truth it was  
something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made  
the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;  
Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;  
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted  
the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny  
corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for  
everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard  
upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest  
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be  
helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was  
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.  
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared  
to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the  
long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of  
delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,  
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with  
the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe  
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and  
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal  
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,  
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as  
Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small  
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at  
last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest  
Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to  
the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss  
Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone–too nervous to  
bear witnesses–to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should  
break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got  
over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they  
were merry with the goose–a supposition at which the two  
young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were  
supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of  
the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the  
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next  
door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that!  
That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit  
entered–flushed, but smiling proudly–with the pudding,  
like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half  
of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with  
Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly  
too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by  
Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that  
now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had  
had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had  
something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it  
was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have  
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed  
to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the  
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the  
jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges  
were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the  
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in  
what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and  
at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.  
Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as  
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with  
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and  
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"

Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little  
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he  
loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and  
dreaded that he might be taken from him.

"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt  
before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor  
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully  
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,  
the child will die."

"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he  
will be spared."

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none  
other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here.  
What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and  
decrease the surplus population."

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by  
the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not  
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered  
What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what  
men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the  
sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live  
than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear  
the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life  
among his hungry brothers in the dust!"

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast  
his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on  
hearing his own name.

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the  
Founder of the Feast!"

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit,  
reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece  
of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good  
appetite for it."

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day."

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on  
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,  
unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!  
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!"

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas Day."

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said  
Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry  
Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and  
very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of  
their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank  
it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge  
was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast  
a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full  
five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than  
before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done  
with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his  
eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full  
five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed  
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;  
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from  
between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular  
investments he should favour when he came into the receipt  
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor  
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work  
she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,  
and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a  
good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at  
home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some  
days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as  
Peter;" at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you  
couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this  
time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and  
by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in  
the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice,  
and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not  
a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes  
were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty;  
and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside  
of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased  
with one another, and contented with the time; and when  
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings  
of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon  
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty  
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,  
the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and  
all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of  
the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot  
plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep  
red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.  
There all the children of the house were running out  
into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,  
uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again,  
were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and  
there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,  
and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near  
neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw  
them enter–artful witches, well they knew it–in a glow!

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on  
their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought  
that no one was at home to give them welcome when they  
got there, instead of every house expecting company, and  
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how  
the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and  
opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with  
a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything  
within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before,  
dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was  
dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly  
as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter  
that he had any company but Christmas!

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they  
stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses  
of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place  
of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed,  
or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner;  
and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.  
Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery  
red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a  
sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in  
the thick gloom of darkest night.

"What place is this?" asked Scrooge.

"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of  
the earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!"

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they  
advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and  
stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a  
glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their  
children and their children's children, and another generation  
beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.  
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling  
of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a  
Christmas song–it had been a very old song when he was a  
boy–and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.  
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite  
blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour  
sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his  
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped–whither? Not  
to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw  
the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them;  
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it  
rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it  
had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league  
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,  
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.  
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds  
–born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the  
water–rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the light had made  
a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed  
out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their  
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they  
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and  
one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and  
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship  
might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in  
itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea  
–on, on–until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any  
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman  
at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who  
had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;  
but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or  
had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his  
companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward  
hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or  
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another  
on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared  
to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those  
he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted  
to remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the  
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it  
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown  
abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it  
was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear  
a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge  
to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a  
bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling  
by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving  
affability!

"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a  
man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can  
say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me,  
and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that  
while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing  
in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and  
good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding  
his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the  
most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage,  
laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being  
not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried  
Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!"

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece,  
indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by  
halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,  
surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that  
seemed made to be kissed–as no doubt it was; all kinds of  
good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another  
when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever  
saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what  
you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too.  
Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's  
the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However,  
his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing  
to say against him."

"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece.  
"At least you always tell me so."

"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's nephew. "His  
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it.  
He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the  
satisfaction of thinking–ha, ha, ha!–that he is ever going  
to benefit US with it."

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece.  
Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed  
the same opinion.

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry for  
him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers  
by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into  
his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.  
What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted  
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they  
must be allowed to have been competent judges, because  
they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the  
table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

"Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew,  
"because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers.  
What do you say, Topper?"

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's  
sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast,  
who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.  
Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister–the plump one with the lace  
tucker: not the one with the roses–blushed.

"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands.  
"He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a  
ridiculous fellow!"

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was  
impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister  
tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was  
unanimously followed.

"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that  
the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making  
merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant  
moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses  
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,  
either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I  
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he  
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas  
till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it–I defy  
him–if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after  
year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only  
puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,  
that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday."

It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking  
Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much  
caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any  
rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the  
bottle joyously.

After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical  
family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a  
Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who  
could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never  
swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face  
over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and  
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing:  
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had  
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the  
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of  
Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the  
things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he  
softened more and more; and thought that if he could have  
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the  
kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands,  
without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob  
Marley.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After  
a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children  
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its  
mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first  
a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I  
no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he  
had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done  
thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the  
Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after  
that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the  
credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,  
tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano,  
smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,  
there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was.  
He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up  
against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would  
have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would  
have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly  
have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.  
She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not.  
But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her  
silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got  
her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his  
conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to  
know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her  
head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by  
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain  
about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told  
him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in  
office, they were so very confidential together, behind the  
curtains.

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,  
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool,  
in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close  
behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her  
love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.  
Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was  
very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat  
her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper  
could have told you. There might have been twenty people there,  
young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for  
wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that  
his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with  
his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too;  
for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut  
in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in  
his head to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,  
and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like  
a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But  
this the Spirit said could not be done.

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half hour,  
Spirit, only one!"

It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew  
had to think of something, and the rest must find out what;  
he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case  
was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,  
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live  
animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an  
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes,  
and lived in London, and walked about the streets,  
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and  
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,  
and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a  
tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh  
question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a  
fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that  
he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last  
the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know  
what it is!"

"What is it?" cried Fred.

"It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal  
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a  
bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer  
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts  
from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency  
that way.

"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said  
Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.  
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the  
moment; and I say, 'Uncle Scrooge!'"

"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old  
man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He wouldn't  
take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle  
Scrooge!"

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light  
of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious  
company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech,  
if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene  
passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his  
nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they  
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood  
beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands,  
and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they  
were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was  
rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every  
refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not  
made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his  
blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge  
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared  
to be condensed into the space of time they passed  
together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained  
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly  
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of  
it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when,  
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,  
he noticed that its hair was grey.

"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.

"My life upon this globe, is very brief," replied the Ghost.  
"It ends to-night."

"To-night!" cried Scrooge.

"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing  
near."

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at  
that moment.

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said  
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see  
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding  
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was  
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;  
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt  
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed  
the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,  
wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where  
graceful youth should have filled their features out, and  
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled  
hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and  
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat  
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No  
change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any  
grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has  
monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to  
him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but  
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie  
of such enormous magnitude.

"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon  
them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.  
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,  
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for  
on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the  
writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out  
its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye!  
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.  
And bide the end!"

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him  
for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

The bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.  
As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the  
prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes,  
beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like  
a mist along the ground, towards him.

STAVE IV: THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When  
it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in  
the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to  
scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed  
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible  
save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been  
difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it  
from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside  
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a  
solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither  
spoke nor moved.

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To  
Come?" said Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its  
hand.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that  
have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,"  
Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an  
instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head.  
That was the only answer he received.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time,  
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled  
beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when  
he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as  
observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him  
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the  
dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon  
him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost,  
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap  
of black.

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more  
than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose  
is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another  
man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company,  
and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak  
to me?"

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight  
before them.

"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is  
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead  
on, Spirit!"

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.  
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him  
up, he thought, and carried him along.

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather  
seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its  
own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on  
'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down,  
and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in  
groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully  
with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had  
seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men.  
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge  
advanced to listen to their talk.

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I  
don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's  
dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third,  
taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box.  
"I thought he'd never die."

"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced  
gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his  
nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin,  
yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't  
left it to me. That's all I know."

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same  
speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go  
to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?"

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the  
gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must  
be fed, if I make one."

Another laugh.

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,"  
said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I  
never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will.  
When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't  
his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak  
whenever we met. Bye, bye!"

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with  
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the  
Spirit for an explanation.

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed  
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking  
that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business:  
very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point  
always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point  
of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.

"How are you?" said one.

"How are you?" returned the other.

"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at  
last, hey?"

"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?"

"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I  
suppose?"

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!"

Not another word. That was their meeting, their  
conversation, and their parting.

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the  
Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so  
trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden  
purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.  
They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the  
death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this  
Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any  
one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could  
apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they  
applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement,  
he resolved to treasure up every word he heard,  
and everything he saw; and especially to observe the  
shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation  
that the conduct of his future self would give him  
the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these  
riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own image; but  
another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the  
clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he  
saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured  
in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however;  
for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and  
thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried  
out in this.

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its  
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his  
thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and  
its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes  
were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel  
very cold.

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part  
of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before,  
although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The  
ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched;  
the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and  
archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of  
smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the  
whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed,  
beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags,  
bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor  
within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges,  
files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets  
that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in  
mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and  
sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a  
charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal,  
nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the  
cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous  
tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury  
of calm retirement.

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this  
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the  
shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman,  
similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by  
a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight  
of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each  
other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which  
the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three  
burst into a laugh.

"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who  
had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second;  
and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look  
here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met  
here without meaning it!"

"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe,  
removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour.  
You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other  
two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop.  
Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal  
in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's  
no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable  
to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the  
parlour. Come into the parlour."

The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The  
old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and  
having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the  
stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken  
threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting  
manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and  
looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the  
woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves.  
He always did."

"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man  
more so."

"Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid,  
woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in  
each other's coats, I suppose?"

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together.  
"We should hope not."

"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough.  
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these?  
Not a dead man, I suppose."

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old  
screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his  
lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look  
after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying  
gasping out his last there, alone by himself."

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs.  
Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the  
woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it,  
if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that  
bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out  
plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to  
see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,  
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle,  
Joe."

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;  
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first,  
produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two,  
a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no  
great value, were all. They were severally examined and  
appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed  
to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a  
total when he found there was nothing more to come.

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give  
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it.  
Who's next?"

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing  
apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of  
sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall  
in the same manner.

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine,  
and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's  
your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made  
it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock  
off half-a-crown."

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience  
of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots,  
dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"

"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward  
on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"

"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and  
all, with him lying there?" said Joe.

"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"

"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and  
you'll certainly do it."

"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything  
in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He  
was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't  
drop that oil upon the blankets, now."

"His blankets?" asked Joe.

"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He  
isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say."

"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said  
old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I  
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for  
such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that  
shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor  
a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too.  
They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied  
the woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to  
do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for  
such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite  
as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did  
in that one."

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat  
grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by  
the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and  
disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they  
had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe,  
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their  
several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you  
see! He frightened every one away from him when he was  
alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I  
see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own.  
My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is  
this!"

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now  
he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which,  
beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up,  
which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful  
language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with  
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience  
to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it  
was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon  
the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept,  
uncared for, was the body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand  
was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted  
that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon  
Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought  
of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it;  
but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss  
the spectre at his side.

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar  
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy  
command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved,  
revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair  
to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is  
not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released;  
it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the  
hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm,  
and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike!  
And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow  
the world with life immortal!

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and  
yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He  
thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be  
his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares?  
They have brought him to a rich end, truly!

He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a  
woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this  
or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be  
kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was  
a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What  
they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so  
restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it,  
I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!"

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the  
head.

"I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do  
it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have  
not the power."

Again it seemed to look upon him.

"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion  
caused by this man's death," said Scrooge quite agonised,  
"show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!"

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a  
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room  
by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness;  
for she walked up and down the room; started at every  
sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock;  
tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly  
bear the voices of the children in their play.

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried  
to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was  
careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was  
a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight  
of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for  
him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news  
(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared  
embarrassed how to answer.

"Is it good?" she said, "or bad?"–to help him.

"Bad," he answered.

"We are quite ruined?"

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is  
past hope, if such a miracle has happened."

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."

She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke  
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she  
said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next  
moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of  
her heart.

"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last  
night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a  
week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid  
me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only  
very ill, but dying, then."

"To whom will our debt be transferred?"

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready  
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be  
a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his  
successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!"

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter.  
The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what  
they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier  
house for this man's death! The only emotion that the  
Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of  
pleasure.

"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said  
Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just  
now, will be for ever present to me."

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar  
to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and  
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They  
entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had  
visited before; and found the mother and the children seated  
round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as  
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,  
who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters  
were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!

"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of  
them.'"

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not  
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he  
and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not  
go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her  
hand up to her face.

"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It  
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak  
eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It  
must be near his time."

"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book.  
"But I think he has walked a little slower than he used,  
these few last evenings, mother."

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a  
steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

"I have known him walk with–I have known him walk  
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."

"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."

"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.

"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon  
her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no  
trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!"

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter  
–he had need of it, poor fellow–came in. His tea  
was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should  
help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got  
upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against  
his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be  
grieved!"

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to  
all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and  
praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls.  
They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his  
wife.

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have  
gone. It would have done you good to see how green a  
place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I  
would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!"  
cried Bob. "My little child!"

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he  
could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther  
apart perhaps than they were.

He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above,  
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas.  
There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were  
signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat  
down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed  
himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what  
had happened, and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother  
working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness  
of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but  
once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing  
that he looked a little–"just a little down you know," said  
Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On  
which," said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman  
you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr.  
Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.'  
By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know."

"Knew what, my dear?"

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.

"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they  
do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I  
can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me  
his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it  
wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be  
able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was  
quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our  
Tiny Tim, and felt with us."

"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.

"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if  
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised–  
mark what I say!–if he got Peter a better situation."

"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping  
company with some one, and setting up for himself."

"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days;  
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however  
and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we  
shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim–shall we–or this  
first parting that there was among us?"

"Never, father!" cried they all.

"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when  
we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he  
was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among  
ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it."

"No, never, father!" they all cried again.

"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!"

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the  
two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook  
hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from  
God!

"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our  
parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not  
how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?"

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as  
before–though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there  
seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were  
in the Future–into the resorts of business men, but showed  
him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything,  
but went straight on, as to the end just now desired,  
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now,  
is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length  
of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be,  
in days to come!"

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you  
point away?"

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked  
in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was  
not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.  
The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither  
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.  
He paused to look round before entering.

A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name  
he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a  
worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and  
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up  
with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A  
worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to  
One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was  
exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new  
meaning in its solemn shape.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,"  
said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the  
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of  
things that May be, only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which  
it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if  
persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the  
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is  
thus with what you show me!"

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and  
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected  
grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.

"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon  
his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"

The finger still was there.

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me!  
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must  
have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I  
am past all hope!"

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he  
fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities  
me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you  
have shown me, by an altered life!"

The kind hand trembled.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it  
all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the  
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I  
will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I  
may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to  
free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it.  
The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate  
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.  
It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

STAVE V: THE END OF IT

YES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own,  
the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time  
before him was his own, to make amends in!

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!"  
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits  
of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley!  
Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say  
it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!"

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions,  
that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his  
call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the  
Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of  
his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings  
and all. They are here–I am here–the shadows of the  
things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will  
be. I know they will!"

His hands were busy with his garments all this time;  
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down,  
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every  
kind of extravagance.

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and  
crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of  
himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I  
am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I  
am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to  
everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo  
here! Whoop! Hallo!"

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing  
there: perfectly winded.

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried  
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace.  
"There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley  
entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas  
Present, sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering  
Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened.  
Ha ha ha!"

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so  
many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.  
The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

"I don't know what day of the month it is!" said  
Scrooge. "I don't know how long I've been among the  
Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never  
mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!  
Hallo here!"

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing  
out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang,  
hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang,  
clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his  
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold;  
cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight;  
Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious!  
Glorious!

"What's to-day!" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a  
boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look  
about him.

"EH?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.

"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, CHRISTMAS DAY."

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I  
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night.  
They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of  
course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!"

"Hallo!" returned the boy.

"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one,  
at the corner?" Scrooge inquired.

"I should hope I did," replied the lad.

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy!  
Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that  
was hanging up there?–Not the little prize Turkey: the  
big one?"

"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure  
to talk to him. Yes, my buck!"

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.

"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."

"Walk-ER!" exclaimed the boy.

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and buy  
it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the  
direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and  
I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than  
five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown!"

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady  
hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.

"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's!" whispered Scrooge,  
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He sha'n't  
know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe  
Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's  
will be!"

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady  
one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to  
open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's  
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker  
caught his eye.

"I shall love it, as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting  
it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before.  
What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a  
wonderful knocker!–Here's the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop!  
How are you! Merry Christmas!"

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his  
legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a  
minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,"  
said Scrooge. "You must have a cab."

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with  
which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which  
he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed  
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle  
with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and  
chuckled till he cried.

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to  
shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when  
you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the  
end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of  
sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.

He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out  
into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth,  
as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present;  
and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded  
every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly  
pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows  
said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!"  
And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe  
sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he  
beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his  
counting-house the day before, and said, "Scrooge and Marley's, I  
believe?" It sent a pang across his heart to think how this  
old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he  
knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.

"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and  
taking the old gentleman by both his hands. "How do you  
do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of  
you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!"

"Mr. Scrooge?"

"Yes," said Scrooge. "That is my name, and I fear it  
may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon.  
And will you have the goodness"–here Scrooge whispered in  
his ear.

"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath  
were taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?"

"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. A  
great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.  
Will you do me that favour?"

"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him.  
"I don't know what to say to such munifi–"

"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come  
and see me. Will you come and see me?"

"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he  
meant to do it.

"Thank'ee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you.  
I thank you fifty times. Bless you!"

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and  
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children  
on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into  
the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found  
that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never  
dreamed that any walk–that anything–could give him so  
much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps  
towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the  
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and  
did it:

"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the  
girl. Nice girl! Very.

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.

"He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll  
show you up-stairs, if you please."

"Thank'ee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand  
already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear."

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door.  
They were looking at the table (which was spread out in  
great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous  
on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

"Fred!" said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started!  
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting  
in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done  
it, on any account.

"Why bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?"

"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.  
Will you let me in, Fred?"

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off.  
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier.  
His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he  
came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did  
every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful  
games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was  
early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob  
Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his  
heart upon.

And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No  
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen  
minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his  
door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter  
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his  
pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as  
near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming  
here at this time of day?"

"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time."

"You are?" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are.  
Step this way, sir, if you please."

"It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from  
the Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather  
merry yesterday, sir."

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I  
am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And  
therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving  
Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into  
the Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your  
salary!"

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He  
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,  
holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help  
and a strait-waistcoat.

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness  
that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the  
back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I  
have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and  
endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss  
your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of  
smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another  
coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and  
infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was  
a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a  
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or  
any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old  
world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him,  
but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was  
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this  
globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill  
of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these  
would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they  
should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in  
less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was  
quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon  
the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was  
always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas  
well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that  
be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim  
observed, God bless Us, Every One!


	4. The Nutcracker

It was the night before Christmas. Clarla and Fritz were sitting by the door of the kitchen. Their cheeks were red after throwing snowballs outside in the cold air. Their eyes shone brighter than the candles on the Christmas tree. They were chattering very excitedly about something.

And what were two children so excited about on Christmas Eve? You don't have to be a genius to guess the answer to that question. For they were talking about -

Presents.

And the presents for Clara and Fritz were wrapped up and waiting for them on the kitchen table, just on the other side of the door. But the children were forbidden to go through the door until it was time. Time for presents. And as they couldn't see the presents, they talked about them instead.

"I bet, " said Fritz, "That this year, Godfather Drosselmeyer has made a two entire armies of clockwork soldiers – thousands and thousands of them - Cavalry, and infantry, and artillery – and they'll go to war with each other and fire cannons and guns like this BAAAMMMMM ! It is will be just like a Real Battle !"

"Oh NO! " said Clara. "I do hope he's made something more pretty than that. I think he's made a toy theatre, with an orchestra that plays, and ballerinas who look like swans and dance on their tip-toes. In fact, Godfather Drosselmeyer has told me himself that he had been to see the Russian dancers – and that they were the most marvellous thing he had ever seen – and that's why I think he's making a magic theatre for us."

"You're such a silly nincompoop sometimes," said Fritz. "Godfather Drosselmeyer doesn't do magic. He makes clockwork that you can wind up."

"Oh yes he does do magic," said Clara. "And in any case, you're the silly nincompoop – so there."

And the children chattered on, until at last the door bell rang to announce that Godfather Drosselmeyer himself had arrived at the house. The children rushed to meet him in the hall.

"Oh Godfather do please come into the kitchen so we can open our presents," begged Clara.

He was a funny-looking man, who wore a wig that sometimes slid half off his head. He had a faint mustache that had never grown very bushy, and his left eye was usually half closed. His hands and fingers were very tiny, but he was ever so clever with them – for Fritz was right; Godfather Drosselmeyer was a watch and clock maker and one of the cleverest who ever lived. But then perhaps Clara was right too. Maybe, just maybe he also could do a little magic. But in any case, his presents were always amazing and wonderful.

It took a while to gather the whole family including parents, children, aunts, uncles and godparents. But at last it was time to open the presents. Sweets, dolls,and tin soldiers all emerged out of the wrapping, and even a Sultan's palace beautifully carved and painted. They were exciting, lovely presents – and at last they were all opened – except that they hadn't yet found a gift from Godfather Drosselmeyer. Clara understood that he was keeping back an extra special surprise for them, but Fritz thought that their godfather such a strange man, that perhaps he had forgotten all about Christmas this year. Both children were too polite to ask – but Clara gave her Godfather a gift of her own – a picture of a sugar-plum fairy that she painted herself. The old man was clearly delighted with it, he said.

"And what have I got for dear Clara and Fritz this year? Ah yes, I remember now. It's here in my waistcoat pocket."

And he pulled out a very small present – no longer than his hand. "Which one of you two wants to open it this year?"

Fritz saw how small the present was and said : "Let Clara open it. She's so excited about it because she's still a baby."

And Clara took the present and felt it. Yes here was its head – a little on the large size, and here were its legs. She smiled and said:

"It's a doll. I bet it dances."

And she carefully unwrapped it.

But it wasn't just a doll. It was a nutcracker – painted to look like a soldier. The handles were legs, in bright red trousers, and with feet in shiny boots, and the part where you put the nuts to crack them looked like an oversized head with giant jaws. On top of its head it wore a tall fury hat. To tell you the truth, it was rather ugly.

"Why thank you," said Clara.

"You're not disappointed are you?" asked Godfather Drosselmeyer.

"No," she said. "I love the nutcracker-soldier because he's funny." And she gave her godfather a hug and a kiss.

But Fritz did not like the nutcracker-soldier at all. He thought it was useless. Well almost, you could use it to crack nuts – and after dinner that's what they did. Clara and Fritz sat under the Christmas tree and cracked walnuts in the mouth of the soldier.

Clara wasn't quite strong enough to break the shells, but Fritz found it easy. Until he tried to break open an extra hard nut. He squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until eventually – the nutcracker broke. One of its jaws came off, leaving the poor solider with half a mouth.

"Oh no!" squealed Clara. "Why did you do that?" And she grabbed the nutcracker and the broken-off piece its jaw and ran off to find their mother.

But what could her mother do? All she could do was to hug Clara and promise that Godfather Drosselmeyer would make the nutcracker as good as new in the morning. It was funny, but now that the nutcracker-soldier was damaged, Clara felt sorry for it, and even though it had an ugly face, she began to love it as much as if it were the most beautiful doll in the world.

And when Clara went to lay it under the Christmas tree, she felt so sad that she lay down and held the broken solider closely to her. She cried a little, and soon she fell asleep among the presents. And if you came into the room just then, you might have thought that Clara herself was a big doll, like the others flopped under the tree.

At midnight, the 12 chimes of the grandfather clock roused Clara from her sleep. She sat up and wondered for a where she was. And as she looked up she saw Godfather Drosselmeyer sitting on the very top of the tree in the place of the angel.

"Godfather ! What are you doing up there? " she said.

But he did not answer, because he was just a doll.

And then she saw the nutcracker. Oh, how sad it looked, lying there with a piece missing. But then the nutcracker-soldier turned over… and it smiled at her with its broken face.

She screamed and started to run for the door. But she had only taken a few steps when she saw that the whole floor in front of her was covered with mice - only they weren't ordinary mice because they were dressed as soldiers and they had swords and rifles. Out in front they were lead by a terrible rodent with seven heads, each with a golden crown on it.

I think that anyone can get a fright from a mouse – they are so small and squeaky, but at the same time they appear out of holes and cracks so suddenly that they catch us by surprise. But an army of mice! And a Seven-headed Mouse-King. This was a terrible sight indeed ! Perhaps I don't need to tell you that Clara let out a scream !

But before she could scream, or cry , or run, the Nutcracker Doll rushed forward followed by his own army of dolls and tin soldiers, and the battle between the toys and the mice broke out all around Clara's feet. The mice squeaked and guns and cannons fired on both sides. Clara wondered why the whole family was not awoken by the noise. Toys and mice lay wounded on all sides, and the nutcracker was fighting with the Mouse King. The Mouse King was biting the nutcracker with his seven heads, but the nutracker fought on – if only he was not broken he could have caught the Mouse King in his jaws, but as it was, all he could do was to dance, jump, and kick with his long legs. He was winning the fight with the King, but losing the battle, for he was surrounded by mice solders who caught him by the feet and started to drag him away.

"Oh no you don't !" screamed Clara, "and she took off her shoe and threw it as hard as she could at the Mouse King. She just missed him, but he took fright and started to run. When the army of mice saw their king running from a giant girl and her flying shoes they turned and fled in terror. In a moment they had vanished into the cracks between the floor boards, leaving their prisoner, the nutcracker, behind them. All the toys cheered and began to dance, until at least, when the first light came through the window they crept back into the toy box, or went back to sleep under the Christmas tree.

And Clara pulled herself back to her own room and fell into a deep sleep.

She awoke late on Christmas Morning. When she went downstairs, she found Godfather Drosselmeyer. He had already fixed the nutcracker doll so that he was as good as new …

"Thank you so much dear Godfather," said Clara. "He's the best present I ever had." And then she told him all about her strange dream.

And her Godfather put his head on one side, while he listened to her dream, and when she had finished telling him, he said.

"Interesting. Very interesting indeed. Your dream reminds me of a story. Let me tell it too you now"

And this is the story that he told Clara.

One Christmas some bad mice crept into the Royal Palace and gobbled up all the sausage meat that was meant for the King's special Christmas lunch. The king was furious, and he summoned his special inventor – whose name was Drosselmeyer and who made many wonderful things. He ordered him to make some mousetraps – which he did – and these were left in the palace kitchens. Soon they had caught lots of mice. The Queen of the Mice was furious – for the mice that lay in the traps were her children. A She climbed up onto the Human Queen's dressing room table, and just as the Queen was going to bed, the Queen Mouse said:

"So you dared to kill my children did you? Well I'll have my revenge, I will. I'll make your little Princess turn quite ugly"

The Queen screamed, and her guards rushed in to the room with drawn swords – but the Mouse Queen had disappeared behind the skirting board.

It so happened that the King and Queen had a beautiful daughter called Princess Pirlpat. When The king heard about the threats of the Mouse-Queen, he ordered bed of the princess must be guarded by seven fierce cats so that no mouse could get near her. But even cats must sleep. And when they were curled up and purring softly, the Queen Mouse crept past them and climbed up on to the end of Princess Pirlpat's cot. There she said an evil magic spell, and in the morning, when she looked in the mirror, she saw that her face had been turned quite, quite ugly. Her nose was long and had a wart on the end of it, her eyes were small and squinty, her hair was standing up on end and would not settle down, she had spots on her chin. In fact, she wasn't just ugly. She was hideous.

As you can imagine, the Queen was utterly distraught – and the King, well he was beside himself. He summoned Drosselmeyer again and gave him just four weeks to find a cure for the princesse's ugliness – or else.

But Drosselmeyer was an inventor, not a magician. He did not know any spells or anti-spells. He did not know what to do, and so he asked the Court Astrologer for his advice. And the advice he received was that Princess Pirlpat must eat a nut called a Crakatook. But first the Nut must be cracked by a boy who had never shaved, and he must do it without opening his eyes, and then he must take seven steps backwards without stumbling.

Well Drosselmeyer searched the land for a Crakatook nut, and eventually, after almost four weeks were up, he found one in a small shop. He brought it before the King.

"This nut sire, " he said, "is the cure for your daughter's ugliness. She must eat it. But first the nut must be cracked by a boy who has never shaved, and he must do it with his eyes closed, and then he must take seven steps backwards without stumbling".

The King was pleased that the cure for his daughter was so straight forward. He made a law that that any boy who fulfilled the conditions and cured his daughter of ugliness would have the hand in marriage of the princess.

And many boys came to the palace and tried to crack the nut. But not one could succeed.

Until one day, Drosselmeyer's own nephew was visiting his uncle in the palace. His face was still smooth, he had not quite reached the age when he needed to shave, and his uncle asked if he would like to try his hand at cracking the nut.

And the nephew held the nut between his teeth. And he closed his eyes. And he cracked it. Then he took seven steps backwards, and on the seventh step — he stumbled.

And although Princess Pirlpat was cured of her ugliness, and was beautiful once more- Drosselmeyer's nephew caught the spell – and his face became ugly. In place of his nice kind mouth, he wore a stupid grin, and his smooth cheeks grew a white curly beard. And his head grew too large for his shoulders. And he looked not only ugly, but stupid too.

And although the King had promised that his daughter would marry the boy who cured her, his daughter refused to marry one who was so ugly. And the king had to agree that it would not be proper for the princess to marry such an ugly, stupid-looking boy.

And as Drosselmeyer's nephew went home, people pointed and laughed at him. His teacher said he could no longer come to school because he looked so stupid. And so he stayed at home, all alone.

And that was the story that Godfather Drosselmeyer told to Clara. And she thanked her Godfather for telling her such an interesting story, but she had to admit that it had made her feel rather sad.

That night Clara was thinking about the strange tale, and she could not fall asleep. After a long while of laying awake, she heard a voice whispering in her ear.

It was the mouse king who had come back. And he said to her:

"Feed me your sweets, or I will bite off the head of your precious nutcracker, and I will spit it out where nobody will find it again, not even your ingenious godfather."

And Clara was so afraid for the nutcracker that she got up and found some sweets for the Mouse king. He gobbled them up with this seven heads in an instance, and then he demanded more. And she went down the the pantry and found some cake – and he ate all of that too – and the Christmas pudding – and the newly baked biscuits. And still he wanted more.

"How much more shall I give you?" Asked Clara. And the Mouse King said:

"It is for me to say when to stop. Give me more. More I say !"

And Clara began to cry – for what would her mother say in the morning when she found that all the sweets, cake and biscuits in the house had been eaten?

And as she was crying, the Nutcracker came striding into the room. The Mouse king turned round and said:

"Prepare to die oh Ugly One " but the Nutcracker bit off each of the Mouse King's seven heads. And soon he lay dead.

And when he had defeated his enemy, Clara picked up her hero and took him back to her room. And instead of going to sleep they watched a wonderful show. Toys came out to dance and sing for them all night long. Never before had Clara seen such a lovely performance.

In the morning she could not wait to tell her mother all about what she had seen.

But when she began to explain about the seven headed mouse king and the brave little nutcracker, her mother said, "Clara – your imagination is running wild. Don't you realise that what you saw is just a dream?"

"But look mother," said Clara reaching into her pocket, "Here are the seven crowns of the mouse king that the nutcracker defeated !"

"Just toys !" said her mother. "stop being silly. Can't you see I'm busy."

And so Clara went into the nursery and sat down and cried.

"It is true, it is true," she said. "And if the nutcracker was a person, not just a, well, a nutcracker, then I would love him and marry him even if he was ugly. I would not be like that Princess Pirlpat in the story. I would love a boy for his good heart – not for his handsome face."

And as she said that, she heard the doorbell, followed by her Godfather's voice in the hall. She went to see him and to tell him what she was thinking.

But there was no need. For Godfather Drosselmeyer had come with his nephew. And his nephew was no longer ugly – but handsome and bright eyed and smiling.

For when Clara had promised to marry an ugly but good boy, she had broken the spell. And he had regained his looks of old. And they both knew that one day they would be married to each other and live happily ever after


	5. The gift of Magi

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling-something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation-as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value-the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends-a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do-oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two-and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again-you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you-sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year-what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs-the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims-just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men-wonderfully wise men-who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.


	6. How the Grinch stole Christmas

Every Who  
Down in Who-ville  
Liked Christmas a lot...

But the Grinch,  
Who lived just North of Who-ville,  
Did NOT!

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!  
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.  
It could be that his head wasn't screwed on quite right.  
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.  
But I think that the most likely reason of all  
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

But,  
Whatever the reason,  
His heart or his shoes,  
He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos,  
Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown  
At the warm lighted windows below in their town.  
For he knew every Who down in Who-ville beneath  
Was busy now, hanging a mistleoe wreath.

"And they're hanging their stockings!" he snarled with a sneer.  
"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"  
Then he growled, with his grinch fingers nervously drumming,  
"I MUST find a way to keep Christmas from coming!"  
For, tomorrow, he knew...

...All the Who girls and boys  
Would wake up bright and early. They'd rush for their toys!  
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!  
That's one thing he hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

Then the Whos, young and old, would sit down to a feast.  
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!  
And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!  
They would start on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast-beast  
Which was something the Grinch couldn't stand in the least!

And THEN  
They'd do something he liked least of all!  
Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,  
Would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing.  
They'd stand hand-in-hand. And the Whos would start singing!

They'd sing! And they'd sing!  
AND they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!  
And the more the Grinch thought of the Who-Christmas-Sing  
The more the Grinch thought, "I must stop this whole thing!  
"Why for fifty-three years I've put up with it now!  
I MUST stop Christmas from coming!  
...But HOW?"

Then he got an idea!  
An awful idea!  
THE GRINCH  
GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

"I know just what to do!" The Grinch Laughed in his throat.  
And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat.  
And he chuckled, and clucked, "What a great Grinchy trick!  
"With this coat and this hat, I'll look just like Saint Nick!"

"All I need is a reindeer..."  
The Grinch looked around.  
But since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.  
Did that stop the old Grinch...?  
No! The Grinch simply said,  
"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead!"  
So he called his dog Max. Then he took some red thread  
And he tied a big horn on top of his head.

THEN  
He loaded some bags  
And some old empty sacks  
On a ramshakle sleigh  
And he hitched up old Max.

Then the Grinch said, "Giddyap!"  
And the sleigh started down  
Toward the homes where the Whos  
Lay a-snooze in their town.

All their windows were dark. Quiet snow filled the air.  
All the Whos were all dreaming sweet dreams without care  
When he came to the first house in the square.  
"This is stop number one," The old Grinchy Claus hissed  
And he climbed to the roof, empty bags in his fist.

Then he slid down the chimney. A rather tight pinch.  
But if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch.  
He got stuck only once, for a moment or two.  
Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue  
Where the little Who stockings all hung in a row.  
"These stockings," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"

Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,  
Around the whole room, and he took every present!  
Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller skates! Drums!  
Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums!  
And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, very nimbly,  
Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimney!

Then he slunk to the icebox. He took the Whos' feast!  
He took the Who-pudding! He took the roast beast!  
He cleaned out that icebox as quick as a flash.  
Why, that Grinch even took their last can of Who-hash!

Then he stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee.  
"And NOW!" grinned the Grinch, "I will stuff up the tree!"

And the Grinch grabbed the tree, and he started to shove  
When he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.  
He turned around fast, and he saw a small Who!  
Little Cindy-Lou Who, who was not more than two.

The Grinch had been caught by this little Who daughter  
Who'd got out of bed for a cup of cold water.  
She stared at the Grinch and said, "Santy Claus, why,  
"Why are you taking our Christmas tree? WHY?"

But, you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick  
He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick!  
"Why, my sweet little tot," the fake Santy Claus lied,  
"There's a light on this tree that won't light on one side.  
"So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear.  
"I'll fix it up there. Then I'll bring it back here."

And his fib fooled the child. Then he patted her head  
And he got her a drink and he sent he to bed.  
And when Cindy-Lou Who went to bed with her cup,  
HE went to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!

Then the last thing he took  
Was the log for their fire.  
Then he went up the chimney himself, the old liar.  
On their walls he left nothing but hooks, and some wire.

And the one speck of food  
The he left in the house  
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.

Then  
He did the same thing  
To the other Whos' houses

Leaving crumbs  
Much too small  
For the other Whos' mouses!

It was quarter past dawn...  
All the Whos, still a-bed  
All the Whos, still a-snooze  
When he packed up his sled,  
Packed it up with their presents! The ribbons! The wrappings!  
The tags! And the tinsel! The trimmings! The trappings!

Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mount Crumpit,  
He rode to the tiptop to dump it!  
"Pooh-pooh to the Whos!" he was grinch-ish-ly humming.  
"They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!  
"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!  
"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two  
"The all the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!"

"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch,  
"That I simply must hear!"  
So he paused. And the Grinch put a hand to his ear.  
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.  
It started in low. Then it started to grow...

But the sound wasn't sad!  
Why, this sound sounded merry!  
It couldn't be so!  
But it WAS merry! VERY!

He stared down at Who-ville!  
The Grinch popped his eyes!  
Then he shook!  
What he saw was a shocking surprise!

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,  
Was singing! Without any presents at all!  
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!  
IT CAME!  
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,  
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?  
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!  
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"  
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.  
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!  
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.  
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

And what happened then...?  
Well...in Who-ville they say  
That the Grinch's small heart  
Grew three sizes that day!  
And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight,  
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light  
And he brought back the toys! And the food for the feast!  
And he...

...HE HIMSELF...!  
The Grinch carved the roast beast!


	7. Twas the night before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house  
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,  
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,  
while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.  
And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,  
had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.

When out on the roof there arose such a clatter,  
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.  
Away to the window I flew like a flash,  
tore open the shutter, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow  
gave the lustre of midday to objects below,  
when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,  
but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,  
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.  
More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came,  
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

"Now Dasher! Now Dancer!  
Now, Prancer and Vixen!  
On, Comet! On, Cupid!  
On, Donner and Blitzen!  
To the top of the porch!  
To the top of the wall!  
Now dash away! Dash away!  
Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,  
when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky  
so up to the house-top the coursers they flew,  
with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof  
the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.  
As I drew in my head and was turning around,  
down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,  
and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.  
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,  
and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!  
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!  
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,  
and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.  
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,  
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.  
He had a broad face and a little round belly,  
that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,  
and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.  
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head  
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,  
and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.  
And laying his finger aside of his nose,  
and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,  
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.  
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"


	8. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

**DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. **  
**"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. **  
**"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' **  
**"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?**

**"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.**  
**"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."**

_VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge._

_Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished._

_Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world._

_You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. _

_No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood._


End file.
